I recently received review copies of my favorite parenting expert’s latest books, Raise Your Kids Without Raising Your Voiceand The Fear Fix– Solutions for every child’s moments of worry, panic and fear. While I was very excited to read “Raise Your Kids Without Raising Your Voice” uchum, for obvious reasons, The Fear Fix was on a back burner. Then, a few weeks later, the school year began with my 3rd grader developing a phobia of bees. Actually, of the wasps that were swarming around the entrance of his school. His fear was so severe that his teacher had to call me in one day to help convince him to go outside (to get home). I remember once hearing a saying, “the refuah is always given before the makka” translated that means that G-d always sends the cure before he sends the ailment. In my case this was literally true. Sitting on top of my “To Do” pile was nothing other than, The Fear Fix – solutions for your child’s phobia! What a relief! I quickly read through The Fear Fix and began applying many of its suggestions and within one week, his phobia was reduced to a mild anxiety and within a month, his mild anxiety was pretty much gone (and so, finally, were those pesty scary wasps!).

Author Sarah Chana Radcliffe also allowed me to review her audio class on using Bach Flower Remedies. As an avid user of essential oils (I use them for healing colds, back aches, in my own home-made deodorant, moisturizer and cleaning solutions), I was very excited to learn about these complimentary products. After listening the the tape and reading The Fear Fix, here is a short summary of the steps I took to help my son overcome his bee phobia.

1. The day I was called into school, I had recently finished the Back Flower Remedies audio class and had a brand new bottle of “Rescue Remedy” in my purse. I put a few drops of it in my son’s water bottle and told him that the drops were supposed to help him feel less anxious about the bees. He liked that idea a lot. Whether Rescue Remedy actually did the job of calming him or if it was a simple Placebo Effect, can be fodder for pages and pages of discussion, but for my purposes, regardless, it was working! Giving him a ‘remedy’ definitely helped him feel calm and happy the rest of the day.

2. I bought “Mimulus Flower Remedy” and began giving drops to my son four times a day, as recommended in the tape. I chose Mimulus because it was the remedy for ‘fear of specific things like dogs, lightning, etc…”. My son had a specific fear of the wasps. Again, he immediately seemed calmer and more secure at the idea of walking through the doors to his school, even though there were wasps flying around.

3. I began using techniques from the book that Radcliffe calls, a “fear soothing toolkit”. Some techniques in this toolkit are: emotional coaching, parental presence, redirecting attention, move fear with facts, gradual exposure, using positive imagination, along with other techniques such as teaching emotional regulation, ‘tapping’ and Bach Flower Remedies. Since I completed an MSW four years ago, some of the techniques were familiar to me, but the book was definitely an excellent review to remind me of the techniques and how to use them. I began with ’emotional coaching’ then moved on to ‘moving the fear with facts’ as well as ‘using positive imagination’. We showed my son some age appropriate bee pictures and videos (one of which was a man with a beard full of bees that my son found to be so incredibly funny that he laughed about it for days) and helped him become a mini bee ‘expert’. He knows all the types of bees, wasps and hornets that can be found along with how painful their stings are.

4. Today, my son seems to be over his fear of the wasps. Next bee season; however, I may have to apply some of the techniques over again of he gets jittery around bees and wasps – but I’m pretty sure the phobia piece is completely gone. I continued the Mimulus Flower Remedy for a few months, even once he was past the wasp fear because I felt it helped him feel less anxious and more secure overall. Whether the remedy has true efficacy or if it is a placebo again doesn’t matter because the Bach Remedies are perfectly safe and have no side effects – so if its merely a security blanket, I’m all for it.

I really enjoyed reading The Fear Fix– it was a great primer (or in my case review) for using simple yet extremely effective therapeutic techniques to help you raise emotionally healthy children. Sarah Chana Radcliffe is a well educated professional and parenting expert whose guidance and material is, in my opinion, top notch. For more information about using Bach Flower Remedies, you can visit Sarah Chana Radcliffe’s website . There is also a section on using the Bach Remedies in The Fear Fix,along with great overall parenting coaching techniques that are useful to all parents – whether dealing with a dominant fear or not. Radcliffe’s books can all be found on Amazon and “Raising Your Kids without Raising Your Voice” was rated as one of Amazon Editors’ favorite books of the year.

I had the pleasure of visiting my friend Chana Lee, aka, The Challah Fairy, for brunch on a very busy erev Shabbos (Thursday afternoon). Chana Lee graciously offered me a tour of her heavenly kitchen. Below is a brief photo essay of the sensual experience. Smell the delicacies with your eyes, or visit The Challah Fairy in New City, New York in person, to experience it with the rest of your senses!

For those of you who aren’t yet familiar with The Challah Fairy, it is a dairy restaurant/café located in New City, New York under Rabbinical supervision of Rabbi Zushe Blech. They serve a really delicious spread of breakfasts and lunches as well as cater for many local events and businesses. The café is most famous for its Challah French Toast (which my out of town guests came back for daily while visiting with us) as well as their cinnamon crumb, raisin or chocolate chip crumb challahs. As someone who doesn’t eat wheat/flour products, I found the quiches and salads to be as satisfyingly deliecious as the baked goods smelled and looked! We of course, took a sampling of Challahs, rugelach, cookies and cakes home to enjoy with the rest of my family for Shabbos. If you are unable to come visit the café in Rockland County, you might get lucky and find The Challah Fairy Challahs in a store near you.

Welcome back to The Kosher Shopaholic. After a long haitus, I’m back bringing you your favorite product reviews, deals and promotions. Thanks for your patience while I took a break from blogging. I was busy in my other career, RaffBusiness.com building a digital strategy for a publishing company. I hope to share more about that with you later. For now, I found a great Amazon promotion to share! A Free $15 Amazon Gift Card!

Spend $50 and get a free $15 Amazon Gift Card. I can easily spend $50 on Amazon household products. Since I’ve joined Amazon Prime, I no longer have to schlep to Costco to buy all those heavy household supplies like laundry detergent, dish soap, and DIAPERS. Those bulky, heavy boxes delivered right to your doorstep – what could possibly be better!?

As a special thank you to you, my loyal KosherShopaholic fans, I am including you in a Giveaway that I am running on my other site, EatingForReal. You can enter the Giveaway through the widget below to win a 3lb case of kosher, grass-fed cowboy steak from KOL Foods.

My Headcoverings.com has a great selection of ladies headcoverings and hair accessories for both children and adults. If you have little girls, you might have noticed that the huge flowers on headbands and clips are all the rage now, and they are very, very cute. I was looking for some to accessorize my girls’ Passover Yontif outfits and found that My Headcovering has a lot of choices at unbelievably low prices, probably the lowest you’ll find anywhere on the web or in stores. Here are some of my favorites.

10% off Coupon Code

Wait, it gets even better (I know I sound like an infomercial) but you can use the “Koshershop” coupon code from now until Pesach to get an additional 10% off of your order. Can’t beat these prices!

Win A $50 Box of Hair Accessories

Wait, it gets even better. As a Passover gift to you, My Headcoverings is giving away a $50 surprise gift basket filled with different hair accessories to 1 lucky winner! Here’s how you can win: Share a picture or the name of Your Favorite item from MyHeadcoverings.com on my Facebook page here and you’ll be entered into the raffle to win a mystery box of hair accessories and head coverings valued at over $50.00! Contest ends Sunday, March 17, 2013.

Recently an Israeli company, Leelach, contacted me to show me their beautiful line of handmade art and clothing made by and for Israeli women. They are offering all Kosher Shopaholic readers 10% off all purchases, including their new Passover collection. Check out these beautiful matzah and afikoman sets featured below, just in time for the Passover holiday!

Leelach.com is the only online shop for handmade art created by Israeli women. You can buy beautiful, unique Israeli jewelry, Judaica, Modest skirts, shirts & dresses, tichels- mitpachot, kippot, and more while you read a bit about the lives of these Israeli women and thus about the reality of life in Israel.

In honor of Passover, they are offering 10% discount off all purchases – all you need to do when checking out put in the code- leelach2013 and click save, continue the checkout, register to leelach.com or checkout as a guest and complete your purchase!

I’ve been on a quest recently to eat more healthfully, boost my metabolism, lose weight and still have energy for my family and work. On this quest I’ve been reading up on many different programs that all seem to transform your body and life, like Paleo and Young & Raw. While I’m not yet ready to make a complete commitment to these extreme lifestyle changes, I’m learning a lot about the healthy, healing nutrients found in nature, nutrients our bodies crave. I’m also much more aware of what I’m putting into my body and my children’s bodies, because as the saying goes, ‘you are what you eat’.

I recently came across some Detox Smoothies from YoungAndRaw.com and while I haven’t yet made many of their smoothies, mainly due to lack of available ingredients on my end, their recipes gave me the idea for a Detox Smoothie of my own. It seems the secret detox ingredients are both Coconut Water and Cilantro. I’ve added Chia seeds, ground vanilla beans and greek yogurt to the mix for added energy, protein and sweetness. I make a double portion in the morning and have it for breakfast. I leave the rest in my fridge for a late afternoon healthy snack to give me energy right before my kids pile home. Its also a great healthy afterschool snack for the little ones, especially if you mix it with ice and make it a frozen treat. Its filling, healthy and tasty! Go ahead and get creative and use some or all of these ingredients, mix in your own favorite fruits and vegies and make up your own Smoothie! The key remember is to remember how healthy, tasty and beneficial natural fruits and vegetables can be!

1 Tablesopoon of plain Greek Yogurt (I use Chobani brand but I understand from my visit to Kosherfest this year that Norman’s and Mehadrin have Chalav Yisrael Greek Yogurt coming out on 2013). You can also substitute Coconut milk here.

1 cup Coconut Water. You can substitute Coconut milk, almond milk, or rice milk if you find the flavor of coconut water too much to handle.

Directions:

Place all ingredients in a blender and mix on high for 30 – 60 seconds. Enjoy!

Natural Health properties of the Ingredients:

1. Cilantro Detoxes heavy metals from the blood and also helps to naturally combat PMS symptoms.

2. Vanilla contains high levels of antioxidants and benefits the nervous system working as a relaxant.

3. Mango can help clear pores.

4. Bananas are a natural mood booster – they contain tryptophan which triggers a serotonin release in the brain.

This groupon deal expires December, 24, 2012 so you still have a full month to use it. Valid starting at 5 p.m. on Black Friday, nab toys for all ages at any Toys“R”Us, Babies“R”Us or the FAO Schwarz NYC flagship location.

As a way to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy, on Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012 Carvel is offering a free ice cream cone with no purchase necessary. This freebie is available from 12:00pm until 8 p.m. at Carvel stores nationwide. While there, you can make a $3 donation to the American Red Cross for hurricane Sandy victims and you will get a Carvel coupon book with $30 in savings.

Carvel is pledging to donate $50,000 to the Red Cross for Superstorm Sandy relief efforts. “The devastation and loss from Sandy is heart wrenching and we hope our efforts bring a little comfort to those affected.” said Scott Colwell, president of Carvel.

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your continuous support of my efforts on this website and wish you, my readers, a happy, healthy and sweet new year may all your prayers be answered for the good, this year and always.